1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of telephony. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to a method and system for connecting pending and preset telephone calls to facilitate transitioning to a phone call.
2. Related Art
The field of personal communications has grown exponentially over the past 10 years. Users have many options when they want to communicate with someone including for instance telephones, cellular phones, electronic mail and instant messaging. It is convenient to have many options when communicating because sometimes one method of communication is more appropriate than another. In addition to many communication options, multiple advances in each of the communications areas provide more communication convenience than ever. For example, caller ID allows a user to view the identity of the calling party without answering a call. If the called party does not wish to take a call from a particular caller, the user has the option to screen the calls without the knowledge of the caller.
Caller identification provides the called party with the name and/or telephone number of the calling party. Caller identification is usually provided to a customer by its local central office. Most often, each central office has access to a local database containing telephone numbers and the corresponding names of people within its local area. Before connecting a call to the called party, the central office searches its database for the telephone number of the calling party. If the telephone number is found within the database, the name corresponding to that number will be accessed and delivered to the called party by the central office using a predetermined protocol. Caller ID relies on a computer to direct information to a called party. Caller ID is useful for identifying a caller's identity, but it is not typically useful for placing a call.
For example, Prior Art FIG. 1A illustrates a conventional caller identification system 10 implemented on a conventional telephone. Telephone 11 comprises a receiver 22, number keys 20, special function buttons 18 and caller ID screen 12. When a call is received, the caller's identification 14 is displayed on the screen 12 as well as the telephone number 16 associated with the caller's ID 14. When a call is received, the receiving user can identify the caller and choose whether to take or ignore the incoming call. While useful on incoming telephone calls, conventional caller identification is not useful for outgoing telephone calls.
Conversely, on many cellular phones, call history is stored in a memory for easy retrieval in the future. For example, if a call is missed, on many cellular phones, the phone number corresponding to the missed call is stored in memory. If a user wants to call the missed caller, a look-up can be done by viewing the missed call database. Many times, a user can push a single button to call a missed phone number without having to type the number into the phone.
Prior Art FIG. 1B illustrates a conventional cellular telephone system 30 that uses caller identification to facilitate outgoing calls. In Prior Art FIG. 1B, cellular telephone 32 comprises a display screen 34 and menu buttons 38 and 36. When an incoming call is missed, typically the caller's identity and telephone number are displayed on screen 34. After a call is missed, the user can select button 38 to call the missed phone number or button 36 to store the phone number and corresponding name to a phonebook database.
Although caller ID technology is convenient to identify the identity of an incoming caller and for calling back a missed caller, conventional caller identification does not facilitate any telephony functions without an initial incoming call.
Moreover, many phone calls are a result of some other related action. For example, a user may receive an electronic mail message and decide to call the person back to respond. Or, a user may receive an instant message (IM) and decide to call rather than type out a response. Or, a user may look up a person in an address book and decide to then call the person.